


Better Than Nothing, Better Than Me

by Daxiefraxie



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, father and daughter hide from a cult, lots of implied trauma, vague undefined "xion lives" au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:27:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28143111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daxiefraxie/pseuds/Daxiefraxie
Summary: Saix took a long breath. Stress responses came automatically. No heart for fear, but his brain still pumped cortisol into his blood. He knew the truth behind those words, and his mind knew to fear it, to hate it, to emulate fury in an empty chest. But Saix had better things to do.Or "hey google does kidnapping a clone from an abusive cult legally count as adoption? asking for a friend"
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	Better Than Nothing, Better Than Me

The Third District of this world was all but abandoned, untouched by even the Heartless that had once swarmed here. It wasn't ideal, but desperation made Saix's options limited.

He pushed the door open, slipped inside, and closed it behind him. This place smelled of dust. Striped teal and pale wallpaper, faded, torn. A stack of large boxes against one wall. A single bed, a table with chairs, a bookcase. Two dressers. It would do. It would have to. He adjusted the possibly-unconscious girl who was currently slumped over one shoulder. Around the table, to the bed, and then lowered her onto the sheets.

Xion didn't move. If she was awake, she didn't show it. She hadn't said a single word since–

_"You can kill me. I trust you."_

Saix took a long breath. Stress responses came automatically. No heart for fear, but his brain still pumped cortisol into his blood. He knew the truth behind those words, and his mind knew to fear it, to hate it, to emulate fury in an empty chest. But Saix had better things to do. 

He grabbed one of the nearest boxes and opened it. Knick-knacks from the home's previous owner, damaged cooking instruments, broken devices of unknown usefulness. So Saix tore one of the cardboard panels from its lid, then did the same to another box. Then, snatching a bundle of tape from atop the pile, he scooted around the table to the windows. After one last glance through the glass into the dim District, eyes searching for spots of black against black, Saix covered each panes with the cardboard and taped the panels up. Finally, he crossed to the door and turned the lock. A plain lock wouldn't do much against a Keyblade wielder, but he wasn't worried about one of those coming to search. After all...

Saix ran a hand through his hair. He turned around, grabbing a chair from the table and sitting it down, facing the bed. He sat down and let out a long sigh. Exhaustion was hitting him as soon as he took a single moment to breathe. Figures. If he'd known it had been this unbearable to be on the run from the Organization, he might have intervened earlier. No, of course that was a lie. "What a mess," he muttered.

Xion shivered.

Saix added 'blanket' to the mental list of needed necessities. He would rather limit his search to this world, but if he needed to, he could probably scavenge items from the other worlds. Whatever it took. Whatever he had to do.

********

When he opened his eyes again, Xion was facing him. Maybe she was still asleep – it was too dark to tell – but she'd rolled over, laying on her side. "Are you awake?" he asked.

"Mhm," she said.

"Good." Saix stood, grimacing as his sore back bemoaned the movement. "We need food and supplies. I'll fetch them; you stay here and rest."

"Okay," she said.

He hesitated. Was he expecting something different? Resistance, or anger perhaps. For her to scream at him, accuse him of kidnapping her. To attack him. To be anything other than that pliable puppet. Whatever Saix had expected, the absence was palpable, it twisted his gut into knots. "Will you be alright?" he asked.

Xion didn't say anything.

"You'll be safe," he said, as if answering his own question.

Xion didn't say anything.

Saix wanted to let exhaustion get the better of him. To collapse in the chair there, to just fall asleep here and let someone else take care of this. To be here, to keep the girl safe himself. "I'll be back," he said, instead.

********

"Food," Saix said. He placed the bowl of grainmeal on the table. He was done searching, done dusting, done cooking. There was yet more to do.

Xion didn't move. She was facing the wall now, away from him.

"I can't make the bed when you're still laying on it," he added. It wasn't much of a joke, but it was the best he had.

She stirred. One arm against the wall, the other on the bed, pulling herself up. Xion made a noise, almost a wheeze, as if the small effort caused her pain. Had it? Were her injuries worse than Saix had thought? He'd only seen a few bruises on her before, but...

Saix shook his head. The girl was tired. She was _tired._ She needed rest, needed peace. Not his neurosis.

Xion dragged herself out of bed, steadying on the wall. Under her hood, Saix could see the bags under her eyes. She stumbled to the table, and something gave out. She fell.

He moved before he could think, grabbing her hand, keeping her upright. "You're alright," he said, one hand on her back, the other holding hers. "You're alright."

"Thank you," she whispered, in a voice that sounded far older than her. Xion shrugged off his hand, then sat down at the table. She stared at the meal.

Something squirmed in him. He couldn't tell for his life what it was. "You should eat," he said, and scooted past the table to the bed.

"I'm not hungry."

"You should eat anyway." He pulled off the sheets and shook them off, holding his breath as a cloud of dust poofed out into his face. Saix's eyes burned. "–strength back," he choked out.

The clink of her spoon against the bowl. Despite the dust, Saix found himself smiling. Just a little. He could allow himself that much.

********

"Will Axel be coming for me?" Xion asked. She was sitting on the bed, bundled in her heavy blanket, leaning on two walls at once. "To kill me, I mean."

Saix bookmarked the novel he'd been reading by lamplight. He could have just kept it open, but a conversation like this demanded his full attention. "If he comes for either of us, he'd come for me. Besides," he offered a smile, "he seems quite fond of you."

Xion shook her head. "He was Roxas's friend. I don't think he was ever just mine." She shuddered, wrapping the blanket tighter around herself. "And I...I..."

"Don't," Saix warned. Then, he caught himself. "He won't see it that way. I've known Axel a long time. We're not on the best of terms, but I know him. He wouldn't have stood up for a friend of a friend, the way he stood up for you." How was it so easy to talk about this with her? The absurdity struck him for a moment, but he pushed it away. "If anyone knows what it's like to live with guilt, it's him."

She didn't say anything for a while. Saix was close to picking back up his book when she spoke again. "I miss him."

Did she miss Roxas, or Axel? Or both? Saix supposed his answer was the same either way. "I'm sure he misses you too."

********

Xion drew a line next to her second set of tally marks on the cardboard. Fourteen days. Blocking out the windows made it hard to tell the passage of time – not that Traverse Town seemed to have a sun at all – but Xion's internal clock was apparently impeccable. Either that, or she was going off gut feeling. Saix didn't much mind either way.

He had his own bed now, he'd managed to clear space by transferring the boxes to another abandoned house, then stealing a couple spare mattress and dragging it back. He'd even managed to fix the house's lights so they wouldn't have to use the portable lamps as often. The cramped house was beginning to feel closer to home. What a home should be.

"We should get something to wear," Xion announced, gesturing dramatically with her pen. "The Org Coats are feeling kinda stuffy."

"By we," Saix corrected, "you mean me."

"No, I mean we." She sat down across the table from him. "It's been two weeks." A fierce purple gaze, stubborn. He knew that look, he'd seen it before many times, she must have picked it up from Lea...from Axel.

"That's not long enough." His bowl was empty, but he still traced the edge with his spoon, let the warped metal sing an odd quiet tune. "I don't know how long the Organization will be looking for you."

"We can take anyone they send," Xion said. "We're stronger than them." She said it with haunting confidence, he had no idea where that came from.

"I'm not concerned about them 'sending' someone," Saix replied, refusing to argue, "I'm concerned about _him_ searching for us himself. And you should be concerned too."

That was enough to drive a wedge in Xion's conviction, and Saix regretted it immediately. "Oh," she said, almost a whisper. The girl flipped her hood up, half-wilting in her seat.

Nobodies didn't get guilty, exactly, but Saix felt the distinct impression he'd messed up. He took a long breath, reaching across the table to grab Xion's bowl. She couldn't stay here. She had a heart, or something that imitated one. The girl yearned, she craved, she pined; Xion had very human desires. She needed to around other people. People who weren't her hollow former taskmaster. "Let's set some ground rules," he decided.

"Huh?" Xion asked.

"Before we go shopping."

She was quiet for a few long breaths. "By we," she said, and he could hear a smile in her voice, "you mean you?"

"No," he replied, smiling back, "I mean we."

********

Xion had passed out before Saix had a chance to finish dinner, collapsed on her bed and fallen asleep almost instantly. Rather than wake her, he packaged up her portion. She could eat it when she woke up. He was honestly exhausted too.

Constant vigilance in a bustling marketplace around dozens upon dozens of humans wasn't an easy thing, not for a Nobody and a Replica. But they'd done it.

Saix carefully pulled the blanket out from under the softly snoring girl and tucked her in. "Goodnight, Xion," he whispered.

It wasn't much, maybe. But it was a step.

********

Xion's tally reached fifty when she tried to leave.

"Where are you going?" he asked, standing in the doorway.

Xion flinched. Adjusted her backpack. "Don't try to stop me, Saix."

"That's not an answer." He stepped outside all the way, closing the door. It was quiet in the Third District. The middle of the night, according to the clock he'd picked up a few weeks back.

"I have to find Namine." Xion stared up at the sky, dotted with stars. "I can't stop dreaming about him – about Sora."

Saix knew, somewhere in the back of this head, this was inevitable. He'd pretended, each and every day, that it would never come.

"I feel like..." She gestured, probably frustrated she couldn't find the words. "I feel insane! I've got this boy's memories running in circles around my head, and sometimes I'll look in the mirror and I'll just see his face." Xion laughed, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. "I can't stand it anymore," she continued. "Namine said she can control memories. Maybe she can get them out of my head somehow, get them back to Sora. Where they belong."

"I understand," Saix said. "It must be painful for you. Feeling like someone you're not."

She didn't answer. One arm out, her fingers closing on the shimmering hilt of a gold and rose-red Keyblade. "Please don't hold back," Xion said. "I don't–"

"Xion," he said, firm, and she flinched. "I'm not going to fight you."

"You can't get me to stop," she insisted, her voice shuddering. "I have to do this."

"I know you do. That's why I'm coming with you."

Xion froze. She turned toward him, slowly, carefully. Her hand shaking around her Keyblade.

"Put the weapon away?" he asked. "Please, let's just talk. I swear I won't try to stop you."

Her lip quivered. And she let go. The Keyblade barely reached the ground before she plowed into Saix, arms around him, nearly knocking the breath out of his lungs as she hugged him as tight as she could and sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed.

He held her. She needed that. She probably needed someone else, someone better. But in lieu of that, she had him. And Saix wasn't going to let anyone hurt her. Not ever.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if I want to write more in this AU, but the concept intrigues me. Plus I desperately needed to write some found family content today.
> 
> [You can find me on tumblr here.](https://myosotis-horizon.tumblr.com/)


End file.
